


Dignity

by autumnsnows



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: BDSM, Choking, Chronal Disassociation, Corruption, F/M, Feral Behavior, Gen, Monsters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:09:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27734353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnsnows/pseuds/autumnsnows
Summary: What dignity can be afforded a beast?
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch & Warrior of Light
Kudos: 7





	Dignity

**Author's Note:**

> Self-indulgent little work exploring what happened if Autumn (my wol) hadn't been able to stabilize her light aether and went to Emet-Selch to turn into a Lightwarden. 
> 
> CWs for monster fucking, blood/bile, my weird interpretation of disassociating for now. Kinda horny now, will be more horny later.

“...What dignity could you possibly afford me, in this state?”   
  
Autumn coughed as more light dripped down her lips, her shirt already soaked through from the aether that surged through her veins, aether that was no longer able to be held by a mortal vessel. It seemed like every pore was oozing out some small amount of the lightwardens’ power, stealing some of her humanity as it passed through her skin and dripping it harmlessly to the floor. Already she could feel her vision and thoughts darkening around the edges, a more complex assessment of her situation brought to abrupt and frustrating ends as thoughts meant to link together had been replaced by a dull blackness, static and noise between two points, the circuits all broken.   
  
“The dignity of not turning into a dull beast,” Emet-Selch said, standing above her, the grin on his face wicked and victorious. “You thought I would waste someone like you on becoming an aether-starved simpleton, only driven by their hunger? What a squandering of such a rare talent.”  
  
Coughing more violently, she weakly turned her head up at him, what little control she had left of her own emotions pointed solely in his direction. “So..you’re not going to leave me to destroy this place? I thought you wanted this world flooded in light. It would further your Rejoining. I am the perfect candidate to further your cause.”   
  
Emet-Selch tsked her as he dropped down to his knees.   
  
“I see the reconstitution of your own soul has not quite given you the ability of foresight, your Echo being what it may.” Snapping his finger, a small contraption materialized out of thin air - Autumn recognized it as being a map of the universe’s shards, diagrams as she had been shown many times since becoming aware of a Hydaelyn beyond her own. “Only we were given the curse of our souls being whole. To have to rebuild our home from scratch. Sure, I can understand the logic you’re employing here. Leave you to your feral comeuppance, let you ravage this world with power beyond their reckoning. The world floods with Light, we trigger another Rejoining, and we come one step closer to making everyone whole again.”   
  
On the contraption, the shard Autumn had come to know as the First became enveloped in a magical light, its integrity disintegrating as its energies poured into what represented the Source.   
  
“But by that time, your humanity will have been completely lost. You would perish along with the rest of this land, and we would move onto the next shard.. We have no use for a feral beast. It’s rather often even the mightiest of these brutes falls to a warrior of a rare talent. You yourself have proven this time and again - even gods fall to their knees before your might.”  
  
Autumn spat the rancid light that had pooled in her mouth at Emet-Selch’s feet. In her condition, she had missed her mark terribly, the barest bits of spittle marking the edge of his shoes. He looked down, idly brushed the flecks of light off, and took a small step backward. “Speak plain, Ascian,” she said. “What do you plan on doing with me?”  
“A shame. I would have thought with this many shards you’d at least have caught on to the schemes you so used to admire from me, but it seems that we still have work to do to bring you home.”   
Even had she been completely clear minded, Autumn would not have hoped to understand the implications of what he just said. 

“I don’t...know you,” she choked out, the words breaking as they left her mouth. Already parts of her had grown numb, the sensation of her limbs replaced with a heavy, empty weight that kept her knees glued firmly to the floor, her hands but simple poles to support her weight on lest she crash her head into the gleaming tile. “You...appeared in my life but a few short weeks ago. We are not in any way familiar.”   
The smile briefly vanished from Emet-Selch’s face before quickly returning to its devious tilt. “Oh, hero, you wound me. We’ve known each other longer than you’ve known anyone else on this wasteland. Longer than even those you knew from your childhood on the Source. No, my darling Phoenix, we’ve known each other our entire lifetimes.”   
He moved back to his original position and reached out his hand, lifting Autumn’s head to rest her chin on his index and middle fingers. The blighted light that spilled from the corners of her mouth stained his white gloves, soaking the fingertips before dripping down onto the ground between them. He paid it no mind. “It is only now that I have been able to say this to you and chance you might believe it. Trust me, the urge to try and stir your soul has surged through my veins with every lingering sight of you across so many eons, so many rejoinings. But the best and hardest part of completing a task is having the patience to see it through until its conclusion. And my measurements are always perfect.”   
The name Phoenix caused a shiver to arc across Autumn’s back, the sensation awakening even her deadened limbs. “Phoenix...why...does that seem so familiar…?” The words had barely passed her lips before she was thrown into yet another convulsion, the hardening of her skin coupled with the feeling that she was beginning to take a different shape overwhelming all her remaining senses as she directed all her strength into consciousness. Emet-Selch spun around her vision, but she knew she could not lose him. If she lost him now, she would lose everything.   
“It’s your name, dear hero.” Emet slid his hand under her chin again, his two fingers replaced with an entire hand cupping and supporting her head’s weight. Her vision still spun, but suddenly much slower. His words provided an equilibrium and clarity that she couldn’t describe nor understand.   
“Phoenix. One of the Convocation of Fourteen. One of the brightest and most tenacious that Amaurot had ever known.” He leaned in, his breath catching on her ears and setting their nerves alight. “My love.”   
Autumn’s eyes dilated as those words registered in her mind. A wave of understanding crashed through her muddied thoughts, cleansing the static in her mind as it seemed like time had stilled.   
“H...Hades?”   
Instantly, her eyes locked into focus, the swaying visage of her long-lost lover now clearer and more painful than it had ever been in her life. Hades' face softened, the mischievous smile on his face replaced by a smile of relief.  
“I knew you would remember,” he said. Reaching out his free hand, he gently pulled the soaking glove off the other, his skin now directly touching her ruined face. He traced the tips of his fingers along her cheeks, his index finger idly flicking away a newly fallen light-steeped tear. “I’ve waited for so long, hero.”   
All of her remaining faculties were on fire, every sensation replaced with a burning measure of emotion that she felt like had been held for far too many lifetimes to count.   
“H...Hades.”  
“Emet-Selch, please. I find the name more fitting.” His still-gloved free hand reached out and stroked at her hair, somehow the only part of her to have been spared the light’s corruption. “Though I will be calling you nothing but Phoenix. Given the efforts I’ve gone through, I believe you agreeable that our reunion is worth casting aside the name this shard has given you.”   
“E-Emet...I...why…? Why make me suffer like this?” Autumn had innumerable words for Emet-Selch, questions on her lips that would fill even the largest of libraries had they been put to paper, but at her core, what tiny bit of herself still remained asked only what was important.   
  
“If I weren’t to make you suffer, you would have been lost to me. The only way I could make you believe it was me was to give you no other option, that your only choices were to embrace the oblivion I had granted you or pierce through the shroud of your tempering. Given the breadth of the choices you have had to make, it only made sense that I’d need to reduce them to two very simple directives. It’s when you are given the least amount of choice that you make the most important decisions. The enormity of weight given such a black and white choice. To embrace the shroud, your soul obscured forevermore, or to lay your soul bare to me, its nakedness illuminating the entirety of who you are. You chose wisely, exactly as I knew you would. ...As I hoped you would.”   
  
“But why in this state?” Autumn asked, desperation punctuating every syllable. “Why as this miserable, wretched beast, choking to death on the very thing that I was blessed with?”   
  
He smiled as he pulled his hands away from her face, gently drooping her chin downward as he reached to retrieve something from his robe. From its hiding place, Emet-Selch procured a circular piece of leather, small rivets of steel inlaid along its entire length. In the middle, an almost supernaturally gleaming platinum ring, a small charm hanging from its edge. Leaning over, he pressed the leather around her neck, his fingers deftly maneuvering behind her head as he slid the strap across the buckle. Even now, a sense of familiarity radiated from the collar, filling her entire body with a warmth unlike any she had felt in her mortal lifetimes.   
“Because you love it, hero. My phoenix loves to be kept in her cage.” 

"Em...m-master…" the word came from elsewhere, a thought that had never crossed her mind yet materialized on her lips. 

"We don't need to return to such names just yet, little bird. In this moment, we are equals. Let us bask in the glow of reunion before we re-establish the dynamic between us." Emet leaned back on his legs, repositioning himself so he was kneeling on both knees in front of her. "You will already be spending so much time in a subservient state - little purpose in rushing the process. The collar will do its work soon enough, just as you designed it to."

Fragmented images flashed across her eyes. The two of them in one of the workshops. The hushed conversations ended when a passerby so much as threatened to be in earshot. The collar straining around her neck as they tested its bounds, drool falling from the corners of her mouth as more primal instincts overtook her, his touch like electricity against her robed body…

Heat shot up through her groin as her body responded to what her mind had not quite put together. Even in her battered state, she could still feel her desire spreading, the mere suggestion of the plans she had made in another life causing wetness intermingled with the aether that held a firm grasp over the state of her being. 

"The...monster..." 

"Is you, of course, my little bird." Reaching back into his robe, he pulled out a long leash, its leather blood-red and well-oiled, the clasp of similar gleaning titanium as the ring on the front of the collar. "You were never satisfied with what the world had given you for a body. Too complex. Too messy. Too unnecessary. While the rest of us chose to invoke our greater forms only in times of need, your invocations were far less discerning. To be at your basest of instincts was the only way for you to feel alive, but you at least recognized that you could not remain in that state indefinitely." 

Pressing the hammer on the clasp down, Emet took great pride in slowly pressing it forward, only releasing the clasp when the hook was firmly and obviously in place. More fragments filled in the holes of Autumn's memories. The leather wrapped around her lover's hand, urging her closer. The look of total control in his piercing yellow eyes. His hand firmly grasping her hair, holding her head still as those piercing yellow eyes trailed over her face. 

“So we made this. To keep yourself right on the edge. Your role as diplomat is too important to abandon - we will make plenty of use of it in the rejoinings ahead.” Smirking, he extended a gloved finger and settled it on her chin. “But you always were the strongest of us, the most fit to battle - aptitude quite necessary when the rest of us were bookish, burlish types. No doubt, then, that you understand why I need you like this?

” Emet tugged strongly at the leash, the strain of the collar jerking Autumn and her thoughts forward, though now her thoughts were falling further and further behind her body. Her vision narrowed at the edges as a burst of angry energy flowed like lava down from her heart, causing her muscles to tense and an involuntary growl to escape her lips.   
“Weapon..I’m your..weapon..” Autumn coughed, the corners of her lips dribbling anew with light aether. Words were becoming harder - she felt like she was falling into herself, her vision steady fading as her conscious fell deeper and deeper into her soul.

  
“You’re my weapon, little bird,” Emet cooed, leaving enough slack in the leash so that Autumn could writhe without any restriction. “That was our whole thing, wasn’t it? To borrow a metaphor of this world, I was the gun, and you were the bullet. I would design, and you would execute. In your own way, of course,” he said, a soft humor draped over his snarky words. “Sometimes in ways that annoyed me to no end. But when we did work together, we were unstoppable. Never would I have expected our two personalities to clash so beautifully against each other.”

  
Autumn continued to have tiny flashes of conscious thought, moments lasting milliseconds but feeling like they lasted forever. The hunger that grew in her stomach was too great to ignore, the heat that spread through her body long past her melting point. Her face grimaced as she felt heavy pressure in each of her fingers, the large, tell-tale bulges of claws rapidly crawling up knuckle by knuckle until bursting forth in brilliant ivory shears, the light aether running rampant through her body dripping from her fingers and sizzling on the ground, each drop a bright flash before it was reabsorbed by the floor of Emet’s study.

“It was an exhilarating time. Truly, the highest points of my life were my seconds whiled away with you. I’ve been chasing that high since I lost you. And now that I’ve found you, I can be whole again.”

  
Autumn’s vision briefly faded as the last of her conscious mind tucked itself away in her soul, her soul cradling it like a small child as the light began to completely corrode Autumn’s aether lines. When her vision returned, all she saw was white, as if staring into the sun and not averting her gaze. Then slowly, hesitantly, waves of light grey aether began to filter into her vision, the aether’s color and form solidifying into something vaguely Emet-shaped. Still enough of her faculties remained that she could pose the mental question of why she felt this horrible hunger, this overbearing, overwhelming desire to be let off her leash, ready to tear into whatever was nearest to get at its sweet aetheric nectar. But no answer would even bother trying to materialize as she lunged forward at Emet, who sidestepped her advance easily. She snarled. She wanted nothing more than to tear this shadow limb from limb, pierce his neck with her teeth and sup of his aether, her infinite hunger and unslakable thirst that much closer to being satisfied as she dissolved his very being away, but something was stopping her.

  
Something was stopping her.

  
_What was stopping her?_

  
A tight tug on the leash jolted Autumn’s conscious mind out of her soul and back into her head, the blinding white and grey aether now fuzzy blobs in her vision as Emet comes back into nauseating focus.   
“I’m what’s stopping you,” Emet said, his face furrowed in concentration as he pulled against the leash, tightening the collar around Autumn’s neck. “I rather like this whole living thing.”

  
As thoughts and memories poured back into Autumn’s mind, she coughed, a splatter of light flying from her mouth. She became aware of herself shrinking in size, coming closer to a perspective that her mind was informing her was the correct one.   
Emet let a little slack out on the leash, enough to let Autumn breathe. With a gentle pull, Emet coaxed Autumn to come down to her knees; she didn’t bother to fight him, instead falling to the ground with a dull thud, her feet having already quit their job. Fire burned through her chest as she took deep breaths for what felt like the first time in hours, the weight of her body falling unceremoniously onto her hips as her eyes glanced past the pools of light aether she’d just spread all over the floor.  
“As soon as I saw the light leave your eyes, I knew it was time for you to return. It’s been too long, and you’ve been out of practice.”   
“You...arse,” Autumn huffed, though her words carried less malice and more endearment. “You did this just to tease me, didn’t you? You know how fucking horny I am right now.”   
“Teasing was...part of the goal, yes,” Emet said, grinning. “But I truly do want to make sure I don’t pull you out too late.”   
“I...appreciate it.” Autumn’s breathing became steadier, and soon she was able to shift herself to a more comfortable sitting position.   
“Do you need some time?” Emet asked, the leash now being held limply by his pinky, ready to drop at any moment. “We’ve got plenty, after all.”   
Autumn looked up at Emet and, despite herself, smiled.   
“Some time would be nice, as long as it’ll be with you,” she replied. 


End file.
